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Photography

Behold the glory of the middle of the Milky Way—thanks to an even better photo database at NASA.

Cool Finds

NASA Launches the Galaxy’s Most Glorious Space Database

Now you can easily peruse more than 140,000 of the agency’s photos, videos and visualizations

This image shows how an iris clip, also known as an intraocular lens, is fitted onto the eye. The clip is a small, thin lens made from silicone or acrylic with plastic side supports to hold it in place. It is fixed to the iris through a tiny surgical incision and can treat cataracts and near-sightedness.

Art Meets Science

Contest Winners Capture the Eerie Beauty of Medical Imagery

From stained mice placenta to an implant in the eye, this year’s Wellcome Image Award recipients highlight the beauty of science

Planet launched 88 more satellites in February.

How Daily Images of the Entire Earth Will Change the Way We Look At It

With more satellites than any other company, Planet Labs gives environmental researchers daily data

Workers labor in the fields in the shadow of Mt. Williamson.

Cool Finds

View Daily Life in a Japanese-American Internment Camp Through the Lens of Ansel Adams

In 1943, one of America’s best-known photographers documented one of the best-known internment camps

A sea turtle entangled in a fishing net swims off the coast of Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, on 8 June 2016

Art Meets Science

Winning Nature Photos Capture Triumph and Turmoil in the Animal Kingdom

From poaching to panda recovery, the winners of the World Press Photo competition chronicle human interactions with nature

What could be the only photos of Paul Gauguin and his Tahitian muse have surfaced. Gauguin is at the center of this photo, kissing a woman that could be his mistress Pahura.

Cool Finds

Rare Photographs Could Show Paul Gauguin in Tahiti

The newly discovered photos are from the summer of 1896

Previously unrecorded portrait of Harriet Tubman

Cool Finds

Newly Discovered Photo May Depict a Younger Harriet Tubman

The late 1860s carte-de-visite comes from fellow abolitionist Emily Howland’s album

This image shows a region in Saturn's outer B ring. NASA's Cassini spacecraft viewed this area at a level of detail twice as high as it had ever been observed before. And from this view, it is clear that there are still finer details to uncover. Researchers have yet to determine what generated the rich structure seen in this view, but they hope detailed images like this will help them unravel the mystery.

Cool Finds

NASA Releases Spectacular New Snapshots of Saturn’s Rings

Millions of moonlets appear to be tucked inside the debris that famously circles the planet

Atlas of Eating

Local Lens: Our Favorite Instagram Tongue Teasers

Hailing from Vietnam, Turkey and Italy, these photographers show that a love of beautifully arranged food knows no borders

Though coral usually needs light to thrive, the Amazon Reef survives despite murky waters.

Cool Finds

Underwater Images Give First Glimpse of Newly Discovered Brazilian Reef

The Amazon Reef once shocked scientists. Now, for the first time, we know what it looks like

Here's what Earth looked like on January 15.

Check Out Breathtaking Images From NOAA’s Newest Satellite

In a word: wow

A daguerreotype portrait of Samuel Morse by his student, Mathew Brady, circa 1844-1860.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

The Inventor of the Telegraph Was Also America’s First Photographer

The daguerreotype craze took over New York in the mid-nineteenth century

House and Cedar-Lined Walk in Mist, October 2003

American South

Get Lost in the Landscape That Inspired William Faulkner’s Greatest Novels

A new book of photography brings the late author’s Mississippi homestead to life

The Titanic leaving Belfast on April 2, 1912. The black streak can be seen just above the water line.

Cool Finds

A Coal Fire May Have Helped Sink the ‘Titanic’

A new documentary claims the Titanic’s hull was weakened before it struck an iceberg

Kiyoshi Katsumoto at his home in El Cerrito, California, 2015

American Incarceration

The Injustice of Japanese-American Internment Camps Resonates Strongly to This Day

During WWII, 120,000 Japanese-Americans were forced into camps, a government action that still haunts victims and their descendants

From left to right: Ricky Jackson is finally a free man; Japanese Americans head into internment in 1942; a Maryland boy (in red) has an inmate mom.

American Incarceration

The Far-Reaching Effects of American Incarceration

Three photo essays explore the history and modern-day consequences of the world’s highest incarceration rate

The first-known photograph of the White House, by John Plumbe, Jr.

Cool Finds

The First-Known Photograph of the White House Was Taken by an Immigrant

John Plumbe, Jr. was one of America’s first rockstar photographers

Marsh Ponds; Mavilette, Nova Scotia, 2014

Canada

A Photographer Captures Emptiness and Longing in Longfellow’s Nova Scotia

Photographer Mark Marchesi spent four years tracing images from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem, “Evangeline”

Decoder glasses help visitors view both utopian and dystopian angles to the exhibition

Cool Finds

This Art Show Looks at 500 Years of Failed Utopias

So far, the ideal has yet to work out

Dendrite Star snowflake

Cool Finds

This Historical Figure Wore the Label “Snowflake” With Pride

Wilson Bentley became the first person to photograph a single snowflake in 1885

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